Part 13

The Kechua language is one of harsh phonetics, especially in the southern dialects, but of considerable linguistic development. The modifications of the theme are by means of suffixes, which are so numerous as to give it a flexibility and power of conveying slight shades of meaning rare in American tongues, and which Friedrich Müller compares to that of the Osmanli Turks.[300] Its literature was by no means despicable. In spite of the absence of a method of writing, there was a large body of songs, legends and dramas preserved by oral communication and the quipus. A number of these have been published. Among them the drama of _Ollanta_ is the most noteworthy. It appears to be a genuine aboriginal production, committed to writing soon after the conquest, and bears the marks of an appreciation of literary form higher than we might have expected.[301] The poems or _yaraveys_, usually turn on love for a theme, and often contain sentiments of force and delicacy.[302] Several excellent grammatical studies of the Kechua have appeared in recent years.[303]

KECHUA LINGUISTIC STOCK.

_Ayahucas_, south of Quitu. _Canas_, east of the Vilcañeta Pass. _Caras_, on the coast from Charapoto to Cape San Francisco. _Casamarcas_, on the head-waters of the Marañon. _Chachapuyas_, on the right bank of the Marañon. _Chancas_, near Huanta, in department Ayacucho. _Chichasuyus_, in the inter-Andean valley, from Loxa to Cerro de Pasco. _Conchucos_, near Huaraz. _Huacrachucus_, on both banks of the gorge of the Marañon. _Huamachucus_, on the upper Marañon. _Huancapampas_, near Juan de Bracamoros. _Huancas_, in the valley of Sausa. _Huancavillcas_, on and near the river Guayaquil. _Huanucus_, near Tiahuanuco. _Incas_, between Rio Apurimac and Paucartambo. _Iquichanos_, near Huanta. _Kechuas_, from Lake Apurimac to the Pampas. _Lamanos_ or _Lamistas_, about Truxillo. _Malabas_, on Rio San Miguel (a branch of the Esmeraldas). _Mantas_, on the coast north of the Gulf of Guayaquil. _Morochucos_, in the department of Ayacucho. _Omapachas_, adjacent to the Rucanas. _Quitus_, near Quito. _Rucanas_, near the coast, about lat. 15°. _Yauyos_, near Cañete.[304]

_2. The Aymaras._

I have thought it best to treat of the Aymara as a distinct linguistic stock, although the evidence is steadily accumulating that it is, if not merely a dialect of the Kechua, then a jargon made up of the Kechua and other stocks. In the first place, the name “Aymara” appears to have been a misnomer, or, as Markham strongly puts it, a “deplorable blunder,” of the Jesuit missionaries stationed at Juli.[305] The true Aymaras were an unimportant _ayllu_ or gens of the Kechuas, and lived in the valley of the Abancay, hundreds of miles from Juli. A number of them had been transported to Juli to work in the mines, and there had intermarried with women of the Colla and Lupaca tribes, native to that locality. The corrupt dialect of the children of these Aymara colonists was that to which the Jesuit, Ludovico Bertonio, gave the name Aymara, and in it, Markham claims, he wrote his grammar and dictionary.[306]

Its grammar and phonetics are closely analogous to those of the southern Kechua dialects, and about one-fourth of its vocabulary is clearly traceable to Kechua radicals. Moreover, the Colla, Lupaca, Pacasa and allied dialects of that region are considered by various authorities as derived from the Kechua. For these reasons, Markham, Von Tschudi, and later, Professor Steinthal, have pronounced in favor of the opinion that the so-called Aymara is a member of the Kechua linguistic stock.[307]

On the other hand, the decided majority of its radicals have no affinity with Kechua, and betray a preponderating influence of some other stock. What this may have been must be left for future investigation. It does not seem to have been the Puquina; for although that tongue borrowed from both the Aymara and the pure Kechua dialects, its numerals indicate a stock radically apart from either of them.

The Aymara was spoken with the greatest purity and precision by the Pacasas; and next to these, by the Lupacas; and it was especially on these two dialects that Bertonio founded his Grammar, and not upon the mongrel dialect of the imported laborers, as Markham would have us believe.[308]

The physical traits of the Aymara Indians offer some peculiarities. These consist mainly in an unusual length of the trunk in proportion to the height, in a surprising development of the chest, and short extremities. The proportion of the thigh to the leg in length is under the average. The leg and calf are well developed, and the general muscular force good. The hands and feet are smaller even than is common in the American race. The skull has a tendency to dolichocephaly.[309] The unusual thoracic development is plainly attributable to the tenuity of the atmosphere breathed by these residents of heights varying from 4,000 to 17,000 feet above sea level. Making allowances for the results of this exposure, they do not differ materially from the general physical habits of the Kechuas.

The location they occupied was generally to the south and east of the Kechuas, upon the plateau and western slopes of the Andes, from south latitude 15° to 20°, and through about six degrees of longitude. It may be said roughly to have been three hundred miles from north to south, and four hundred from east to west. The total native population of this area to-day is about six hundred thousand, two-thirds of whom are of pure blood, and the remainder mixed. Some of them dwell along the sea coast, but the majority are on the Bolivian plateau, the average altitude of which is more than twelve thousand feet above sea level.

The old writers furnish us very little information about the Aymaras. At the time of the discovery they were subject to the Kechuas and had long been thus dependent. Many, however, believe that they were the creators or inspirers of the civilization which the Kechuas extended so widely over the western coast. Certain it is that the traditions of the latter relate that their first king and the founder of their higher culture, Manco Capac, journeyed northward from his home on the shores of Lake Titicaca, which was situated in Aymara territory. From the white foam of this inland sea rose the Kechua culture-hero Viracocha, who brought them the knowledge of useful arts and the mysteries of their cult.

On the cold plain, higher than the summit of the Jungfrau, which borders this elevated sea are also found the enigmatical ruins of Tiahuanuco, much the most remarkable of any in America. They are the remains of imposing edifices of stone, the cyclopean blocks polished and adjusted so nicely one to the other that a knife-blade cannot be inserted in the joint.[310] In architectural character they differ widely from the remains of Incarian structures. The walls are decorated with bas-reliefs, there are remains of columns, the doors have parallel and not sloping sides, all angles are right angles, and large statues in basalt were part of the ornamentation. In these respects we recognize a different inspiration from that which governed the architecture of the Kechuas.[311]

No tradition records the builders of these strange structures. No one occupied them at the time of the conquest. When first heard of, they were lonely ruins as they are to-day, whose designers and whose purposes were alike unknown. The sepulchral structures of the Aymaras also differed from those of the Incas. They were not underground vaults, but stone structures erected on the surface, with small doors through which the corpse was placed in the tomb. They were called _chulpas_, and in construction resembled the _tolas_ of the Quitus. Sometimes they are in large groups, as the _Pataca Chulpa_, “field of a hundred tombs,” in the province of Carancas.[312]

AYMARA LINGUISTIC STOCK.

_Canas_, in the Sierra of the province so-called, east of Cuzco. _Canchis_, in the lowlands of the province of Canas. _Carancas_, south of Lake Titicaca. _Charcas_, between Lakes Aullaga and Paria. _Collas_, or _Collaguas_, north of Lake Titicaca. _Lupacas_, west of Lake Titicaca, extending to Rio Desaguadero. _Pacasas_, occupied the eastern shore of Lake Titicaca. _Quillaguas_, on part of the southern shore of Lake Titicaca.

_3. The Puquinas._

The Puquinas are also known under the names Urus or Uros, Hunos and Ochozomas. They formerly lived on the islands and shores of Lake Titicaca, in the neighborhood of Pucarini, and in several villages of the diocese of Lima. Oliva avers that some of them were found on the coast near Lambayeque.[313] If this is correct, they had doubtless been transported there by either the Incas or the Spanish authorities. They are uniformly spoken of as low in culture, shy of strangers and dull in intelligence. Acosta pretends that they were so brutish that they did not claim to be men.[314] Garcilasso de la Vega calls them rude and stupid.[315] Alcedo, writing in the latter half of the eighteenth century, states that those on the islands had, against their will, been removed to the mainland, where they dwelt in gloomy caves and in holes in the ground covered with reeds, and depended on fishing for a subsistence.

They are alleged to have been jealous about their language, and unwilling for any stranger to learn it. Their religious exercises were conducted in Kechua, with which they were all more or less acquainted. The only specimen of their tongue in modern treatises is the Lord’s Prayer, printed by Hervas and copied by Adelung.[316] On it Hervas based the opinion that the Puquina was an independent stock. The editors of the “Mithridates” seemed to incline to the belief that it was related to the Aymara, and this opinion was fully adopted by Clement L. Markham, who pronounced it “a very rude dialect of the Lupaca,”[317] in which he was followed by the learned Von Tschudi.[318]

None of these authorities had other material than the _Pater Noster_ referred to. Hervas credits it to a work of the missionary Geronimo de Ore, which it is evident that neither he nor any of the other writers named had ever seen, as they all speak of the specimen as the only printed example of the tongue. This work is the _Rituale seu Manuale Peruanum_, published at Naples in 1607. It contains about thirty pages in the Puquina tongue, with translations into Aymara, Kechua, Spanish and Latin, and thus forms a mine of material for the student. Though rare, a copy of it is in the Bibliothèque Nationale at Paris, and is thus readily accessible. I have published a number of extracts from its Puquina renderings in the _Proceedings of the American Philosophical Society_ for 1890. They are sufficient to show that while this language borrowed many terms, especially those referring to religion and culture, from the neighboring Kechua and Aymara dialects, these were but additions to a primitive stock fundamentally different from either of them.

The dissimilarity of the three tongues is well seen in their numerals, which are as follows:

KECHUA. AYMARA. PUQUINA. One, _huc_, _mayni_, _pesc_. Two, _iscay_, _pani_, _so_. Three, _quimsa_, _quimsa_, _capa_. Four, _tahua_, _pusi_, _sper_. Five, _pichka_, _pisca_, _tacpa_. Six, _soccta_, _chocta_, _chichun_. Seven, _canchis_, _pa-callco_, _stu_. Eight, _pusacc_, _quimsa-callco_, _quina_. Nine, _iscon_, _llalla-tunca_, _checa_. Ten, _chunca_, _tunca_, _scata_.

In these lists the Aymara numerals, _one_, _two_ and _four_ are independent; _three_, _five_, _six_ and _ten_ are taken from the Kechua; and the remaining three are compound, _pa-callco_, being 2+5; _quimsa-callco_, 3+5; and _llalla-tunca_ meaning “less than ten.” _Callco_ is derived from the word for “foot,” the counting being with the toes. On the other hand, there is not a single numeral in the Puquina which can be derived from either Kechua or Aymara; and what is more remarkable, there is apparently not one which is compounded.

It remains puzzling to me why the Puquina, which seems to have been spoken only by a few wretched villagers about Lake Titicaca, should have been classed by writers in the sixteenth century as one of the _lenguas generales_ of Peru. Not only does Ore refer to it by this term, but in one of the official _Relaciones Geograficas_ written in 1582, it is mentioned as “one of the three general languages of this kingdom.”[319] This would seem to indicate that at that period it had a wider extension than we can now trace.

_4. The Yuncas._

The Yuncas occupied the hot valleys near the sea between south latitude 5° and 10°, their capital being in the vicinity of the present city of Truxillo. Their tongue belongs to an entirely different stock from the Kechua, and was not influenced by it. It still survives in a few sequestered valleys. The extreme difficulty of its phonetics aided to prevent its extension.[320]

There is little doubt but that the Yuncas immigrated to their locality at some not very distant period before the conquest. According to their own traditions their ancestors journeyed down the coast in their canoes from a home to the north, until they reached the port of Truxillo.[321] Here they settled and in later years constructed the enormous palace known as the _Gran Chimu_, whose massive brick walls, spacious terraces, vast galleries and fronts decorated with bas-reliefs and rich frescoes, are still the wonder and admiration of travelers.[322]

Near by, in the valley of Chicama and vicinity, they constructed capacious reservoirs and canals for irrigation which watered their well-tilled fields, and were so solidly constructed that some of them have been utilized by enterprising planters in this generation. Doubtless some of these were the work of the Incas after their conquest of this valley by the Inca Pachacutec, as is related by Garcilasso de la Vega,[323] but the fact that the Chimus were even before that date famed for their expertness in the working of metals and the fashioning of jewels and vases in silver and gold,[324] proves that they did not owe their culture to the instruction of the Quichuas.

The term _yunca-cuna_ is a generic one in the Kechua language, and means simply “dwellers in the warm country,” the _tierra caliente_, near the sea coast. It was more particularly applied to the Chimus near Truxillo, but included a number of other tribes, all of whom, it is said, spoke related dialects. Of the list which I append we are sure of the Mochicas or Chinchas, as the Yunca portion of Geronimo de Ore’s work is in this dialect;[325] of the Estenes, Bastian has printed quite a full vocabulary which is nearly identical with the Yunca of Carrera;[326] Mr. Spruce obtained in 1863 a vocabulary of forty words from the Sechuras, proving them to belong to this stock;[327] but the dialects of the Colanes and Catacoas are said by the same authority to be now extinct. According to the information obtained by the Abbé Hervas, the “Colorados of Angamarca” also spoke a Yunca dialect,[328] but I have been unable to identify this particular tribe of “painted” Indians.

The location of the stock at the conquest may be said to have been from south lat. 4° to 10°; and to have included the three departments of modern Peru called Ancachs, Libertad, and Piura.

YUNCA LINGUISTIC STOCK.

_Catacoas_, on the upper Rio Piura. _Chancos_, on the coast south of the Mochicas. _Chimus_, near Truxillo. _Chinchas_, see _Mochicas_. _Colanes_, on Rio Chiura, north of Payta. _Etenes_, in the valleys south of Lambayeque. _Mochicas_, at Mochi, near Truxillo. _Morropes_, north of Lambayeque. _Sechuras_, on Rio Piura.

_5. The Atacameños and Changos._

In the valley of the river Loa, about 20°-23° south latitude, and in the vicinity of Atacama, there still survive remnants of a tribe called Atacameños by the Spaniards, but by themselves _Lican-Antais_, people of the villages. Their language appears to be of an independent stock, equally remote from that of the Kechuas and the Aymaras. Vocabularies of it have been preserved by various travelers, and the outlines of its grammar have been recently published by San-Roman.[329] From two of its numerals and some other indications Dr. Darapsky has connected it with the Aymara, which is also spoken in that vicinity.[330] The relationship, however, cannot be considered established, and the latest researches tend to sharpen the contrast between the _Cunza_, as it is sometimes called, and the Aymara.

The Lican-antais are fishermen and live in a condition of destitution. The aridity of the climate is unfavorable to agriculture. In physical habitus they are short, with dark complexions, flat broad noses and low foreheads.

D’Orbigny identifies the Lican-Antais with the Olipes, Lipes or Llipis of the older writers[331] (Garcilasso, etc). This, however, is open to doubt. Von Tschudi hazarded the opinion that the Atacameños were a remnant of the Calchaquis of Tucuman, who had sought refuge from the Spaniards in this remote oasis on the coast.[332] I can find no positive support for this view, as we have no specimens of the language of the Calchaquis.

Immediately to the south of the Atacameños, bordering upon the sterile sands of the desert of Atacama, between south latitude 22° and 24°, are the _Changos_. In their country it never rains, and for food they depend entirely on the yield of the sea, fish, crustacea and edible algae. Like the Bushmen of the Kalihari desert, and doubtless for the same reason of insufficient nutrition, they are undersized, as a tribe perhaps of the shortest stature of any on the continent. The average of the males is four feet nine inches, and very few reach five feet.[333] They are, however, solidly built and vigorous. The color is dark, the nose straight and the eyes horizontal.

Nothing satisfactory is reported about their language, which is asserted to be different from the Aymara or any other stock. The tribe has been confounded by some writers with the Atacameños, and the Spaniards apparently included both under the term _Changos_; which is at present used as a term of depreciation. But both in location and appearance they are diverse. Whether this extends also to language, as is alleged, I have not the material to determine, and probably the tongue is extinct.[334]

II. THE SOUTH ATLANTIC GROUP.

1. THE AMAZONIAN REGION.

Those two mighty rivers, the Amazon and the Orinoco, belong to one hydrographic system, the upper affluents of the latter pouring their waters for six months of the year into the majestic expanse of the former. Together they drain over three million square miles of land,[335] clothed throughout with lush tropical vegetation and seamed by innumerable streams, offering natural and facile paths of intercommunication. It is not surprising, therefore, that we find linguistic stocks extended most widely over this vast area, each counting numerous members. Of them the most widely disseminated were the Tupi, the Tapuya, the Carib and the Arawak families, and to these I shall first give attention.

_1. The Tupis._

Along the coast of Brazil and up the Amazon there is current a more or less corrupted native tongue called the “common language,” _lingua geral_. It is derived mainly from the idiom of the Tupis, whose villages were found by the first discoverers along the seaboard, from the mouth of the La Plata to the Amazon and far up the stream of the latter. According to their traditions, which are supported by a comparison of their dialects, the Tupis wandered up the coast from the south. Their earlier home was between the Parana river and the Atlantic. There they called themselves _Carai_, the astute, a term they afterwards applied to the Spaniards, but later were given the name _Guaranis_, meaning warriors, by which they are generally known. They must have been very numerous, as a careful estimate made in 1612 computed those then living in the modern states of Corrientes and Uruguay at 365,000; a census which could not have been much exaggerated, as about a century later the Jesuits claimed to have over three hundred thousand Christianized and living in their “reductions;”[336] even to-day ninety per cent. of the population of Uruguay have Guarani blood in their veins.

The inroads of the Spaniards from the south and of the kidnapping Portuguese from the east, reduced their number greatly, and many bands sought safety in distant removals; thus the Chiriguanos moved far to the west and settled on the highlands of Bolivia, where they have increased their stock from four or five thousand to triple that number,[337] extending as far south as the Pilcomayo river. On the upper waters of the Parana were the Tapes, a nation so called from the name of their principal village. It is another form of Tupi, and means “town.” They received the early missionaries willingly, and are complimented by these as being the most docile and intelligent of any of the nations of South America.[338]

The Tupi tribes did not extend north of the immediate banks of the Amazon, nor south of the Rio de la Plata. It would appear not improbable that they started from the central highlands where the Tapajoz on the north and the Paraguay on the south have their sources. Their main body followed the latter to the Atlantic, where the Tupis proper separated and moved up the coast of Brazil. This latter migration is believed to have been as late as a few hundred years before the discovery.[339]

Like the Tapuyas, the Tupis have a tendency to dolicocephaly, but it is less pronounced. They are less prognathic, the forehead is fuller and the color of the skin brighter. The hair is generally straight, but Pöppig saw many among the Cocamas of pure blood with wavy and even curly hair.[340]

I have no hesitation in including in the Tupi family the Mundurucus, or Paris, on the upper Tapajoz. Their relationship was fully recognized by Professor Hartt, who was well acquainted with both dialects.[341] They are a superior stamp of men, tall, of athletic figures, light in color, their naked bodies artistically tattooed. Their women are skilled in weaving cotton hammocks, and the men pursue some agriculture, and manufacture handsome feather ornaments.

To the same family belong the Muras and Turas, in the swampy valley of the Madeira in its middle course, “an amphibious race of ichthyophagi,” as they are called by Martius, savage and hostile, and depraved by the use of the _parica_, a narcotic, intoxicating snuff prepared from the dried seeds of the _Mimosa acacioides_. At the beginning of this century they were estimated at 12,000 bowmen; but this was doubtless a great exaggeration. Though their dialect differs widely from the _lingua geral_, the majority of their words are from Tupi roots.[342] Others are related to the language of the Moxos, and in the last century certain of their tribes lived in the immediate vicinity of these, and were brought into the “reductions” of the Moxos Indians by the Jesuit missionaries.[343] The tendency of their migrations has been down the Madeira.

The tribes of this lineage in the extreme south of Brazil were numerous. The Guachaguis, corresponding apparently to the modern Guachis, are said by Lozano to speak a corrupt Guarani.[344] Vocabularies have been obtained by Castelnau and Natterer, which indicate only a remote resemblance. According to their own tradition, they migrated from near the Moxos in the Bolivian highlands.